Get Our Extension
Select Wikiz in another Language
Français
Settings
A
A
Text Highlights
Notes/Citations
Edit on Wikipedia

Share This Article

About Wikiz About Us Cookies Policy Terms & Services Privacy Policy Contact Contact us Enjoying Wikipedia Content? DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA
Enjoying Wikipedia Content? DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA

Invasion of Martinique (1674)

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
Invasion of Martinique
Part of the Franco-Dutch War
Assaut des Hollandais sur le Fort-Royal de la Martinique 1674.jpg
A French lithograph of the invasion
Date19-21 July 1674
Location
Fort-Royal, Martinique
Result French victory
Belligerents
 France  Dutch Republic
Commanders and leaders
Thomas-Claude Renart
Antoine André		 Michiel de Ruyter
Strength
1 frigate
1 merchant ship
160 men		 18 ships of the line
36 smaller ships
7,400 men
Casualties and losses
6 killed
10 wounded		 1,000–1,300 killed or wounded[1]

The invasion of Martinique in 1674 was an unsuccessful attempt by the Dutch Republic to conquer the Caribbean island of Martinique from France. In spite of overwhelming Dutch superiority in men and ships, the French won a decisive and unexpected victory.

Background

In 1672, the kingdoms of France and England issued declarations of war on the Dutch Republic, sparking the Franco-Dutch War. However, Dutch naval victories in the North Sea led the English to abandon their part in the war in early 1674. The Dutch could now direct all of their considerable naval strength against the French, and they decided to attack Martinique, the headquarters of French West Indian colonies in the Caribbean.[2] The Dutch believed that the capture of Martinique would enable them to quickly conquer France's other Caribbean colonies and rebuild their own war-ravaged network of West Indian slave plantations, giving them dominance over the entire Lesser Antilles.[3]

To achieve these aims, the Dutch assembled a powerful invasion force under Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, widely regarded as the greatest naval commander of the age, whose naval successes against the English had led to a Dutch victory in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.[4] A fleet of eighteen ships of the line, including his 80-gun flagship De Zeven Provinciën, plus thirty-six smaller warships, support ships and troopships, and an invasion army of 7,400 soldiers was placed under his command.[5] The young Count of Styrum was appointed to lead the ground forces and designated to act as military governor,[6] but the assault was entrusted to the Count of Hoorn, the Dutch Republic's most prominent siege-warfare commander.[7]

Martinique was defended by a colonial militia consisting of two companies of cavalry and a dozen infantry companies with a theoretical strength of roughly 2,000 men.[8] However, the defending French commander, the Marquis de Baas, miscalculated by concentrating his forces to defend the seat of government at Saint-Pierre in the north of the island: de Ruyter chose instead to attack the main anchorage at Fort-Royal on the west coast. The fortified citadel at Fort-Royal was manned by the local militia company, and the French warship Les Jeux under the command of Captain Thomas-Claude Renart, while they could expect some additional assistance from the captains and crews of the merchant ships in the harbour.[5] However, most of these were military assets of uncertain reliability and quality.

The Fort-Royal militia company could only muster around 100 men, of whom a quarter quickly deserted, including their captain.[9] Only one of the merchant ships, the Saint-Eustache, was equipped with any significant armament.[5] The citadel was little more than a set of wooden palisades around a steep-sided promontory, with two unfortified artillery positions at the water's edge, a modest battery of four guns pointed outwards from the promontory's southern tip to sweep the outer roadstead of Fort-Royal Bay, and larger emplacement of around a dozen cannon commanding the sheltered anchorage to its east.[10] The most significant military presence was thus the warship Les Jeux, but this was a small frigate, barely 100 feet from bow to stern, armed with just twenty-eight cannons, and carrying a crew of only 150 men.[11]

Discover more about Background related topics

Kingdom of France

Kingdom of France

The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe since the High Middle Ages. It was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world.

Kingdom of England

Kingdom of England

The Kingdom of England existed on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it unified from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Dutch Republic

Dutch Republic

The United Provinces of the Netherlands, officially the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, and commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands. The republic was established after seven Dutch provinces in the Spanish Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule, forming a mutual alliance against Spain in 1579 and declaring their independence in 1581. It comprised Groningen, Frisia, Overijssel, Guelders, Utrecht, Holland and Zeeland.

Franco-Dutch War

Franco-Dutch War

The Franco-Dutch War, also known as the Dutch War, was fought between France and the Dutch Republic, supported by its allies the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Brandenburg-Prussia and Denmark-Norway. In its early stages, France was allied with Münster and Cologne, as well as England. The 1672 to 1674 Third Anglo-Dutch War and 1675 to 1679 Scanian War are considered related conflicts.

Martinique

Martinique

Martinique is an island which is a single territorial collectivity of the French Republic. It is also part of the European Union as an Outermost Region within the Special territories of members of the European Economic Area, but is not part of the Schengen Area and the European Union Customs Union. As part of the French (Antilles) West Indies, Martinique is located in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It has a land area of 1,128 km2 (436 sq mi) and a population of 364,508 inhabitants as of January 2019. One of the Windward Islands, it is directly north of Saint Lucia, northwest of Barbados and south of Dominica. Martinique is an Outermost Region and a special territory of the European Union; the currency in use is the euro. Virtually the entire population speaks both French and Martinican Creole.

French West Indies

French West Indies

The French West Indies or French Antilles are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean:The two overseas departments of: Guadeloupe, including the islands of Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Les Saintes, Marie-Galante, and La Désirade. Martinique The two overseas collectivities of: Saint Martin, the northern half of the island with the same name, the southern half is Sint Maarten, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Saint Barthélemy

Caribbean Sea

Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the northern coast of South America. The Gulf of Mexico lies to the northwest.

Lesser Antilles

Lesser Antilles

The Lesser Antilles are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc between the Greater Antilles to the north-west and the continent of South America. The islands of the Lesser Antilles form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Together, the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles make up the Antilles. The Lesser and Greater Antilles, together with the Lucayan Archipelago, are collectively known as the West Indies.

Michiel de Ruyter

Michiel de Ruyter

Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter was a Dutch admiral. Widely celebrated and regarded as one of the most skilled admirals in history, De Ruyter is arguably most famous for his achievements with the Dutch Navy during the Anglo-Dutch Wars. He fought the English and French forces and scored several critical victories, with the Raid on the Medway being the most famous among them.

Dutch ship De Zeven Provinciën (1665)

Dutch ship De Zeven Provinciën (1665)

De Zeven Provinciën was a Dutch ship of the line, originally armed with 80 guns. The name of the ship refers to the seven autonomous provinces that made up the Dutch Republic in the 17th century. The vessel was built in 1664-65 for the Admiralty of de Maze in Rotterdam by the master shipbuilder Salomon Jansz van den Tempel.

Friedrich Wilhelm of Limburg

Friedrich Wilhelm of Limburg

Friedrich Wilhelm of Limburg-Styrum, count of Limburg and Bronckhorst was the son of Otto of Limburg-Styrum.

Jean-Charles de Baas

Jean-Charles de Baas

Jean-Charles de Baas-Castelmore, marquis de Baas was governor and lieutenant general of the French Antilles from 1669 to 1677. As a young man he became a soldier during the Franco-Spanish War (1635–59), and participated in the Fronde rebellion of 1648–53. King Louis XIV of France pardoned him for this, and he played an important role in the fighting in Italy. After being made governor general of the Antilles he transferred the administrative center from Saint Christopher Island to the more strategically located and economically important Martinique. He had to deal with constant crises in supplies caused by the (often-ignored) ban on trading with the English and Dutch. He improved the administration, developed the defenses of Fort Royal, and helped fight off an attempted Dutch invasion in 1674.

Battle

A portrait of the Dutch commander, Michiel de Ruyter.
A portrait of the Dutch commander, Michiel de Ruyter.

The Dutch fleet arrived off Martinique on the afternoon of 19 July 1674, but calm conditions prevented them from starting their attack that day, and allowed the French to make hurried defensive preparations. Two French merchant ships were scuttled as blockships to impede the deep-water channel leading into the anchorage, and a defensive boom was set across the entrance of the inner harbour; the veteran adventurer Guillaume d'Orange took the lead in organizing the remnants of the militia company.[5] The troops were reinforced by a detachment of sailors, combining volunteers from the crews of the two scuttled merchant ships and a small party of trained musketeers from Les Jeux, and as dawn rose on the morning of 20 July, the island's governor, the Chevalier de Sainte-Marthe, arrived to take command of the defense, with a small contingent of additional militiamen. Even with these reinforcements, his defending force consisted of barely 160 men.[9]

The Dutch attack began around 9 o'clock, with a cannonade by the ships, followed by the first wave of soldiers in a flotilla of open boats. Rather than attacking the harbour directly, they rowed into the largely undefended bay beneath the steep cliffs on the west side of the fortress, coming ashore around 11 o'clock on the beach where the civilian settlement was located, but the defender fired down from the heights of the fortress, injuring the Count of Styrum.[12] Popular accounts claim that many of the Dutch troops lost their discipline as they landed, and turned to looting a warehouse full of rum, but the commanders rallied their remaining men, and made preparations to assault the fortress.[13]

The Dutch made an assault against the palisade on the landward side of the fort, where they were repulsed by the musket fire of the militia and sailors. A second Dutch force found a narrow passage leading up through the cliffs into the interior of the fortifications, but their attack was seen by Guillaume d'Orange - unable to use a musket due to old war-wounds, he threw down rocks at the Dutchmen; other soldiers and sailors hurried up to assist him, with Ensign de Martignac, the commander of the naval detachment, shooting repeatedly into the densely packed Dutch ranks at close range, aiming his shots to take down two men at a time. This fight came down to hand-to-hand combat, but the Dutch standard-bearer was killed and his war flag was captured,[12] apparently by Captain Renart himself.[14]

The Dutch retreated in some disarray, but in the afternoon, they renewed their attack.[13] First, they tried to force the anchorage directly by sending in frigates to attack, but their advance was stopped by the sunken blockships, and their ships were caught in enfilade between the gun emplacements of the fortress on the west, and the broadsides of Les Jeux and Saint-Eustache in the sheltered inner harbour on the eastern side.[15] When the ships retreated, the infantry attacked against the fortress again, but they found themselves under a devastating artillery fire: Captain Renart had brought Les Jeux close inshore to rake their advancing ranks with broadsides of grapeshot, and he had deployed the ship's six swivel guns in the fort, to fire directly into their attacking front.[16] After several hours of unsuccessful attacks, Admiral de Ruyter gave the signal to retreat. The Dutch conceded between 1,000 and 1,300 killed or wounded.[17]

The French had suffered only sixteen casualties in total,[13] including their wounded,[18] but they were short on ammunition, and they believed that the Dutch would soon renew their assault: Sainte-Marthe abandoned the fort, and ordered the ships to be burned.[18] The remaining merchantmen were duly set alight, but Captain Renart decided to ignore the governor's orders for as long as possible, waiting anxiously aboard Les Jeux all night.[13][18] Early in the morning, the lack of any evidence of activity around the Dutch beachhead prompted him to send his first officer to investigate: he discovered that the Dutch had withdrawn back to their ships during the hours of darkness and their fleet was already sailing away, leaving only a few of their casualties, too seriously injured to move, amid the dead, and a rout of abandoned weaponry and military equipment.[18] The defending force had won a dramatic and unexpected victory.[13]

Discover more about Battle related topics

Michiel de Ruyter

Michiel de Ruyter

Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter was a Dutch admiral. Widely celebrated and regarded as one of the most skilled admirals in history, De Ruyter is arguably most famous for his achievements with the Dutch Navy during the Anglo-Dutch Wars. He fought the English and French forces and scored several critical victories, with the Raid on the Medway being the most famous among them.

Scuttling

Scuttling

Scuttling is the deliberate sinking of a ship. Scuttling may be performed to dispose of an abandoned, old, or captured vessel, to prevent the vessel from becoming a navigation hazard, as an act of self-destruction to prevent the ship from being captured by an enemy force, as a blockship to restrict navigation through a channel or within a harbor, to provide an artificial reef for divers and marine life, or to alter the flow of rivers.

Blockship

Blockship

A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used as a waterway. It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of HMS Hood at Portland Harbour in 1914; or it may be brought by enemy raiders and used to prevent the waterway from being used by the defending forces, as in the case of the three old cruisers HMS Thetis, Iphigenia and Intrepid scuttled during the Zeebrugge raid in 1918 to prevent the port from being used by the German navy.

Boom (navigational barrier)

Boom (navigational barrier)

A boom or a chain is an obstacle strung across a navigable stretch of water to control or block navigation.

Antoine André de Sainte-Marthe

Antoine André de Sainte-Marthe

Antoine André, chevalier de Sainte-Marthe de Lalande was a French soldier who served in England, Belgium and Martinique. He is best known for his defeat of the Dutch in their attempted Invasion of Martinique (1674). As a young man he served as a captain of the guard of Queen Henrietta Maria of France, wife of Charles I of England. After the 1646 defeat of the royalists in the English Civil War he joined the French service and fought in Flanders against the Spanish until the conclusion of peace in 1659. After spending some time unemployed or with a peacetime garrison he joined the king's guard in 1667, and this led to his appointment as governor of Martinique from 1672 until his death in 1679.

Rum

Rum

Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Philippines, where Tanduay is the largest producer of rum globally.

Hand-to-hand combat

Hand-to-hand combat

Hand-to-hand combat is a physical confrontation between two or more persons at short range that does not involve the use of weapons. The phrase "hand-to-hand" sometimes include use of melee weapons such as knives, swords, clubs, spears, axes, or improvised weapons such as entrenching tools. While the term "hand-to-hand combat" originally referred principally to engagements by combatants on the battlefield, it can also refer to any personal physical engagement by two or more people, including law enforcement officers, civilians, and criminals.

Standard-bearer

Standard-bearer

A standard-bearer, also known as a flag-bearer is a person who bears an emblem known as a standard or military colours, i.e. either a type of flag or an inflexible but mobile image, which is used as a formal, visual symbol of a state, prince, military unit, etc. This can either be an occasional duty, often seen as an honour, or a permanent charge ; the second type has even led in certain cases to this task being reflected in official rank titles such as Ensign, Cornet and Fähnrich.

War flag

War flag

A war flag, also known as a military flag, battle flag, or standard, is a variant of a national flag for use by a country's military forces when on land. The nautical equivalent is a naval ensign. Under the strictest sense of the term, few countries today currently have proper war flags, most preferring to use instead their state flag or standard national flag for this purpose.

Enfilade and defilade

Enfilade and defilade

Enfilade and defilade are concepts in military tactics used to describe a military formation's exposure to enemy fire. A formation or position is "in enfilade" if weapon fire can be directed along its longest axis. A unit or position is "in defilade" if it uses natural or artificial obstacles to shield or conceal itself from enfilade and hostile fire. The strategies, named by the English during the Hundred Years' War, use the French enfiler and défiler spoken by English nobility of the time.

Grapeshot

Grapeshot

In artillery, a grapeshot is a type of ammunition that consists of a collection of smaller-caliber round shots packed tightly in a canvas bag and separated from the gunpowder charge by a metal wadding, rather than being a single solid projectile. When assembled, the shot resembled a cluster of grapes, hence the name. Grapeshot was used both on land and at sea. On firing, the canvas wrapping disintegrates and the contained balls scatter out from the muzzle, giving a ballistic effect similar to a giant shotgun.

Swivel gun

Swivel gun

The term swivel gun usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rotated along their axes to allow the shooter to switch between rifled and smoothbore barrels.

Aftermath

French historians still describe Martinique as an astounding military success: the great de Ruyter and the all-conquering Dutch navy had been defeated by a single frigate.[19] Martinique would remain French. Captain Renart was rewarded with the grand noble title of Marquis d'Amblimont; he would later return to Fort-Royal as governor-general of the French Caribbean.[14]

The humiliated Dutch fleet retreated back across the Atlantic, their combat losses compounded by the ravages of sickness.[13] Their ambitions to expand their colonial empire in the Americas were permanently stalled, leaving them with only Surinam and the Dutch Antilles. Modern historians of seventeenth-century Dutch naval history sometimes chose to avoid mentioning the campaign at all.[20]

Discover more about Aftermath related topics

French nobility

French nobility

The French nobility was a privileged social class in France from the Middle Ages until its abolition on 23 June 1790 during the French Revolution.

Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about 106,460,000 km2 (41,100,000 sq mi). It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe, and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World.

Surinam (Dutch colony)

Surinam (Dutch colony)

Surinam, also unofficially known as Dutch Guiana, was a Dutch plantation colony in the Guianas, bordered by the equally Dutch colony of Berbice to the west, and the French colony of Cayenne to the east. It later bordered British Guiana from 1831 to 1966.

Netherlands Antilles

Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country consisted of several island territories located in the Caribbean Sea. The islands were also informally known as the Dutch Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the autonomous successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies. The Antilles were dissolved in 2010. The Dutch colony of Surinam, although it was relatively close by on the continent of South America, did not become part of the Netherlands Antilles but became a separate autonomous country in 1954. All the island territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, although the legal status of each differs. As a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status. People from this former territory continue to be called Antilleans in the Netherlands.

Source: "Invasion of Martinique (1674)", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022, November 7th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Martinique_(1674).

Enjoying Wikiz?

Enjoying Wikiz?

Get our FREE extension now!

Download Extension

Further Reading

Third Anglo-Dutch War

Michiel de Ruyter

Siege of Havana

Fort Saint Louis (Martinique)

Invasion of Martinique (1809)

Capture of Saint Martin (1633)

Siege of Brimstone Hill

Roemer Vlacq (1637–1703)

Battle of Martinique (1667)

Jean-Baptiste de Valbelle

John Harman (admiral)

Thomas-Claude Renart de Fuchsamberg Amblimont
References
  1. ^ "Note de bataille - Le Parrhésiaste". Le Parrhèsiaste - Actualités France, Monde, Politique, Culture, Arts, Opinion, Economie, Société (in French). Retrieved 20 September 2021.
  2. ^ Marley (2008), vol. 1, p. 277.
  3. ^ Pritchard (2004), pp. 280-281.
  4. ^ De la Ronciere (1919), p. 35, Van der Moer (1997), pp. 93, 108.
  5. ^ a b c d Marley (2008), vol. 1, p. 278.
  6. ^ De la Ronciere (1919), p. 41, Van Schilfgaarde (1961), vol. 3, p. 88.
  7. ^ De la Ronciere (1919), p. 36.
  8. ^ Elisabeth, (2003), p. 58. Pritchard (2004), p. 54, shows that the number of adult male colonists declined from nearly 2,400 in 1671 to barely 1,800 in 1682.
  9. ^ a b De la Ronciere (1919), p. 38.
  10. ^ De la Ronciere (1919), pp. 38, 42.
  11. ^ Demerliac (1992), p. 41.
  12. ^ a b De la Ronciere (1919), pp. 40-41.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Marley (2008), p. 279.
  14. ^ a b Delahaut and L'Écuy (1822), pp. 455-456.
  15. ^ De la Ronciere (1919), p. 42.
  16. ^ De la Ronciere (1919), pp. 42-43
  17. ^ "Note de bataille - Le Parrhésiaste". Le Parrhèsiaste - Actualités France, Monde, Politique, Culture, Arts, Opinion, Economie, Société (in French). Retrieved 20 September 2021.
  18. ^ a b c d De la Ronciere (1919), p. 44.
  19. ^ De la Ronciere (1919), p. 35, Vergé-Francheschi (1997), p. 111.
  20. ^ Van der Moer (1997), p. 108.
Sources
  • Charles Joseph Delahaut and Jean-Baptiste L'Écuy, Annales civiles et religieuses d'Yvois-Carinan et de Mouzon (Desoer and Delaunay: Paris, 1822).
  • Alain Demerliac, La marine de Louis XIV. Nomenclature des vaisseaux du Roi-Soleil de 1661 à 1715 (Nice: Editions Omega, 1992).
  • Léo Elisabeth, La Société martiniquaise aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Éditions Karthala 2003).
  • David F. Marley, Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the Western Hemisphere (2nd. ed., 2 vols., Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008).
  • Abraham van der Moer, "Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter: Ornament of His Age (1607-1676)", in The Great Admirals: Command at Sea, 1587-1945, ed. Jack Sweetman (Annapolis, MA: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1997), pp. 82–111.
  • James Pritchard, In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
  • Charles de la Ronciere, "L'attque du Fort-Royal de la Martinique par Ruyter (20 Juillet 1674)", Revue de l'histoire des colonies françaises, 7 (1919), pp. 35–46.
  • Antonie Paul van Schilfgaarde, De Graven Van Limburg Stirum in Gelderland en de geschiedenis hunner bezittingen (3 vols., Assen: Van Gorcum, 1961).
  • Michel Vergé-Francheschi, "Les gouvernerurs des colonies françaises au XVIIIe siècle. L'exemple antillais et canadie", in Les Européens et les espaces océaniques au XVIIIe siècle: actes du colloque de 1997, ed. François-Xavier Emmanuelli (Paris: Presses de l'université Paris Sorbonne, 1997), pp. 109–130.

Primary Sources

  • Gerard Brandt, La vie de Michel de Ruyter, (Amsterdam: Blaeu, 1698).[1]
  • Eugène Bruneau-Latouche, ed., "Les défenseurs de la Martinique lors de l'attaque de Ruyter", G.H.C. Bulletin No. 92 (April 1997), pp. 1928–1942. [2]

Coordinates: 14°36′00″N 61°03′59″W / 14.5999°N 61.0664°W / 14.5999; -61.0664 (Location of Fort Royal)

Categories

The content of this page is based on the Wikipedia article written by contributors..
The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence & the media files are available under their respective licenses; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use & Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization & is not affiliated to WikiZ.com.